


Feeling to music

by dreamline



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Music, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 15:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15732621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamline/pseuds/dreamline
Summary: Singing is feeling set to music. Music is emotion given voice.Chloe loves it when Lucifer sings.





	1. Everybody hurts

Each breath shakes in her chest. Her throat is tight, hot, mouth dry. Her eyes burn at the corners.

Breathing sharply through clenched teeth, she scrubs at her eyes before dropping her hands to grip the rail so tight she can feel the metal impressing itself on her skin. Tipping her head back, she stares up at the clouded sky and wishes, wishes, that this- this- _all of this_ …

She feels him arrive. He doesn’t make a sound, no creak of the door opening, no click of dress shoes on concrete. Not even a breath. But she knows he’s there.

She always knows.

“Some cases.” She says to the sky. To him. To heaven. “Some cases make me realise. Just why you hate your dad so much.”

A tear escapes. It tracks down her cheek, drops to land on the back of her hand. The soft impact stabs like a blade.

Behind her she hears him breathe in. Controlled. Then he steps forward, appearing next to her. He leans on the rail too, pose mirroring her with his hands resting by hers and his head tipped back. She doesn’t look round.

“I wish you,” he starts, then cuts himself off. In her peripheral vision she sees him shake his head. His hand is trembling. It resounds through the metal, up her arms into her heart where the feel of it, his anger, the knowledge of their shared fury, soothes some of the bitter fire in her soul.

She shifts her hand just enough that their fingers touch. He leans towards her in response, shoulder brushing hers.

Raindrops prick her upturned face. It almost seems for a crazy moment that heaven is crying with her and the anger flares so incandescent that it blinds her. _He_ doesn’t get to feel sorrow over this, not ever over _this._

A touch on her hand. She blinks, the white rage withering as fast as it rose.

She looks down. His hand is closed over hers. As she breathes in, shaky and weak, his thumb strokes softly over her fingers.

She blows out a breath and gives up the fight to hold herself upright. Taking his arm, she pulls it around her shoulders and sags against his side. He cradles her in, tucks her close against him, turns his head to rest on hers. A kiss ghosts across her hair. She slips her arm around his waist, under his suit jacket, as close as she can bring herself. Runs her hand up his side, back to rest at his hip. The lean lines of him ground her against the tide.

For a long moment she just breathes. In and out. Against her ear she half hears, half feels the rhythm of his breaths and she focuses on that. Brings her own breaths in sync. Sinks into the calm of it.

She loses herself so deeply in the hypnotic repetition that it’s a long, slow realisation when it comes to her. That she can hear the rain pattering on the concrete, tapping on the glass of the windows behind them, but she can’t feel it on her skin. She’s completely dry.

Opening her eyes again, she twists her head to look up. A canopy of feathers arc over her, shielding her. The long primaries curve down past her shoulder in a mirror of his embracing arm.

Turning her face back, she presses her hand to his stomach in silent thanks. He hums into her hair. She closes her eyes again and just leans.

After a while his humming changes, morphs from aimless to purposeful. It picks up a melody, carries it through to his fingers subconsciously dancing the notes on her arm. She knows the song from somewhere. It’s a familiar beat in the back of her mind. For a moment she chases the recollection, but then she sighs and lets it go. It doesn’t matter. She lets it resonate through her, spreading warmth from her crown to her toes.

When the song ends they can go inside. They can face what’s waiting back there, all of _that_ back there. But for now, she presses her hand to his chest, feels the harmony against her fingers in time with the percussion beat of the rain, and lets the warmth chase the chill anger from her bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R.E.M - Everybody hurts


	2. Landslide

Chloe opens her eyes to darkness.

Pain.

Her head feels like she’s been smacked with a hammer.

She’s flat on her back. Her legs are curled under her, her arms hugged tight to her chest. The ground under her is cold, hard. Rough stones dig into her flesh.

“Chloe?”

Her head whips up from the floor.

“Lucifer?” She goes to sit up.

“Shh, no, calm down.” Lucifer’s voice is close. He sounds like he’s leaning right above her but he makes no move to touch her. “You can’t move Chloe, you _can’t_.”

The urgency in his voice stops Chloe dead.

“Lucifer. What’s going on? Where are we?”

“We, ah…” He laughs a little, but it rings hysterical at the edges. “We’re maybe slightly trapped under a collapsing building?”

Chloe blinks into the darkness for a long, long moment.

“Right.” She finally forces out of her mouth that’s suddenly desert-dry. “Right. Okay.”

“I think someone set off some kind of explosion after we walked in,” Lucifer tells her. “Clearly a trap designed to kill us, so I think that confirms our theory of who’s the culprit for the murders. When we get out of here I think we’ll have a cast iron case to stick to them.”

Chloe can tell he’s trying to keep her calm by talking. It’s not really working.

“Okay,” she says again. She breathes in slowly, trying to gather her panicked thoughts and quell the rising nausea in her stomach. “So. If we’re trapped under a collapsed building how exactly are we not very squashed right now?”

“I’m holding the wreckage off us,” he replies, entirely matter of fact. “With my wings.”

There’s a silence. Chloe debates whether she misheard. Decides she didn’t. Re-evaluates her world-view yet again.

“I did not know you could do that,” she finally manages to respond.

“Well they are powered by divine strength,” Lucifer says, even managing to sound slightly smug. “But I admit, I was taken by surprise and I had to grab you, so I’m not exactly at the best angle here.”

Chloe wriggles her hands out carefully, exploring the space around her. She finds Lucifer’s hands on either side of her head, bracing him above her. Following his arms up, she traces the shape of him leaning over her, head a foot above hers and knees bracketing her legs. He clearly can’t move without disrupting the integrity of their refuge.

“I see what you mean,” she nods. “Well, actually I don’t. It’s as black as hell in here.”

“Close.” He laughs properly this time.

“Is your phone in your jacket? I could try and reach it and turn on the torch.” She fumbles for his chest.

“No.” She feels the air move as he shakes his head. “I think it fell out.”

“And mine’s in my jeans pocket so it’s probably smashed. Again.” She drops her hands in defeat. “My phone provider is getting to hate me.”

“I could try…” Lucifer trails off. He sounds uncertain, the self-doubt in his voice a jarring contrast to his usual bravado. “I don’t know if I can… I haven’t done this in a long, long time.”

Confused, Chloe stares up at where his face must be. “What… wait what’s..?”

A gentle glow outlines the darkness. A soft whiteness haloes Lucifer’s head, spreads out behind him, down to surround them in a warm, subtle glow. Lucifer’s face forms out of the shadows, looking down at her with wide eyes. The relief of seeing him punches hard against her ribs.

Then she realises where the light is coming from.

Lucifer’s wings. He’s crouched forward over her, his wings pulled high and close around them, enclosing them entirely. And every feather is lit from within with the gentlest of white lights.

“Lucifer?” She whispers, awed. “How are you…”

“Divine light.” He replies tersely. “Don’t look too closely, Detective. You may be immune to most things about me, but divinity is a powerful force. It can send people mad.”

He sounds so genuinely concerned that Chloe forces herself to look away. She focuses instead on his face close above her. He’s watching her intently, expression tight.

“It’s all right.” She reaches up and presses her fingers to his chest, gently reassuring. “I think I can deal.”

He relaxes a little, smiles.

“Of course you can.”

Now that she can see, Chloe’s instincts kick into gear.

“Right. First things first. How do we get out of here?” She glances back over at his wings. “Can you fly us?”

Lucifer shakes his head immediately.

“If I try to move my wings the rubble will come down on us before I can get us to safety.”

“Oh.” She cranes her head around, peering through the gaps in his feathers into the textured darkness beyond. The light from the wings lends just enough shape to the shadows for her to make out rebar and concrete, twisted metal. She feels her hands begin to shake and forces them still with a monumental effort of will.

“Don’t worry,” Lucifer says gently. “I do have a plan.”

Chloe brings her hand up to hold his wrist. The beat of his pulse against her fingers is a solid comfort.

“I called Amenadiel.” Somewhere in the darkness behind Lucifer there’s a groan of metal and he breaks off to curse under his breath. Chloe tightens her grip on this wrist. “It’s fine.” He hurries to reassure her. “Some rubble settling.” He breathes in slowly. Behind his head his wings flex, settling the weight more evenly over him.

“I called Amenadiel,” he repeats. “He’ll come and stop time which will give _me_ time to fly us both out. Simple.”

“I thought Amenadiel always came as soon as you called? Isn’t he taking a little too long?” She can’t keep nervousness from colouring her tone.

“Oh he did reply,” Lucifer half shrugs, the movement curtailed by his hunched position. “He’s chasing some miscreant demons back into hell. Since our lives are not in immediate terminal danger, he’ll be with us as soon as he’s done terrorising them.”

“So we just have to wait?”

“Exactly.”

Chloe falls silent. Right. Wait. In almost pitch darkness with only a tiny cave of feathers between her and immediate crushing death. Fine. She can do that.

“It’s all right, Detective.” Lucifer breaks into her thoughts just before she spirals off completely into internal panic. “I promised you I wouldn’t let you come to harm. And I won’t.”

“I know.” She does know. She really does. But that doesn’t stop the instinctual fear in the marrow of her bones. “Maybe just… keep talking to me. Keep talking to me until he gets here.”

Lucifer’s eyes soften.

“Of course. I’m here for you, Detective. Always.”

She smiles. Then as the relief of knowing there’s someone coming washes the sickness out of her stomach, something mischievous bubbles up to take its place.

“You know,” she tilts her head. “You could sing to me.”

Instant confusion.

“What?”

“You could sing to me. Something lovely and soothing. Like a lullaby.” She fights to keep the shake of laughter out of her voice. “You’re really good at those.”

His frown deepens.

“I do not sing lullabies, Detective Decker.” He sounds so disgusted it’s all she can do to keep her voice level.

“You sang Trixie a lullaby once.”

He glares at her.

_“Once.”_

She can’t keep it in any longer. The laugh bursts out of her, snorting inelegantly out of her nose.

“Sorry, sorry.” She gasps when she’s got herself marginally back under control. He scowls at her again, feathers puffing up behind his head in indignation. It makes him look so ridiculously like an offended parrot that Chloe loses it all over again.

Lucifer rolls his eyes as she giggles helplessly.

“Yes, good, laugh at your selfless, noble saviour.” His tone is sour but his eyes are amused and he can’t quite stop the corner of his mouth twitching. “You’re lucky I love you too much to let you be crushed to death.”

Her humour melts into softness. Flippant joke or not, her heart lights every time he says those words.

 _Love._ She thinks, looking up at his frown, the tense line of his shoulders, the dust-strewn tangle of his hair. _I love you_.

Unbidden, her hand rises to brush dirt from his cheek. She lets her fingers linger on his jaw.

“I really am,” she whispers.

His eyes lock onto hers. She feels him jerk, making to move towards her then catching himself into stillness at the last second. He blinks, swallows hard.

“Don’t make me want to kiss you when I’m trying to hold up a building.”

Repentant, Chloe presses a kiss to her fingers and reaches up to touch them to his lips. She closes her fingers around his returned kiss and holds them to her lips, then her heart.

“There,” she whispers. “For now.”

He smiles at her, something vulnerable flashing for a moment in his eyes before the suave façade slips back into place.

“For my gracious lady, perhaps one song,” he concedes, bowing his head in mock chivalry.

“And what is the good sir going to serenade me with?” She plays along, hamming up her worst British accent to make him wrinkle his nose in disgust. Which he promptly does.

“I don’t know, what would be an appropriate song for the situation?” He smiles, eyes suddenly sparkling. “Under Pressure?”

“Lucifer. No.”

“You did ask. Bury me Deep?”

“Sisters of Mercy? Really?” She presses her hands over her eyes.

“Sound of the Underground?”

“Seriously?” She almost shrieks with laughter. “You know Girls Aloud? Why do _you_ know Girls Aloud?”

For just a second his smile turns wolfish. “Hell offers all kinds of torture, Detective.”

She laughs again, gentler this time, sadness at the bottom of it. No matter how many times he jokes about hell, now she knows it’s real, it’s not a metaphor, he really did spend actual millennia there, she can’t feel anything but horror and regret.

“All right,” he says, apparently not noticing her change in mood. “How about this one?”

He launches straight in. Despite it being dropped from a woman’s voice into his octave, it only takes her a line to recognise the song.

 _“Lucifer._ Landslide _is not a good choice of word right now.”_

“What?” He looks at her, eyes wide with feigned innocence. “It’s thematically appropriate. And…” He pauses, watching her with an expression she can’t quite catch the shape of. Apprehension? Doubt? Fear? All of them at once? “And I _was_ afraid of changing,” he finally says, looking away. “Until you.”

Her breath catches. Why does he always choose the most inappropriate moments to come out with the most meaningful confessions? Why can’t he ever just tell her these things over a glass of whisky at his piano when they’re warm and soft and safe?

Still. She’ll take his vulnerability whenever he offers it. Half-buried under a warehouse or not. She lifts her hand again, cups it round his jaw and runs her fingers through the soft hair behind his ear.

“Okay.” She meets his gaze, hoping he can feel her understanding, her acceptance. “I like that song.”

He watches her for a beat, silent and still, before his face relaxes. He taps his finger once, twice to find the rhythm of the song again, then slides back in where he stopped.

Chloe closes her eyes, listens to the reverberation of his voice off the stone around them and thinks _I’ve built my life around you._

_I’ve built my life around you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fleetwood Mac - Landslide


	3. Leave a tender moment alone

Chloe slams the door behind her. The sound reverberates in her ears, shudders across the raw edges of her consciousness. She grits her teeth and closes her eyes for a brief moment against the pain of it.

Toeing off her shoes, she flings her bag onto the sofa and stamps into the kitchen. A frustrating tussle with the padlock on the cupboard under the kitchen sink almost has her tearing her hair out, but she manages to wrench it open the second before she actually decides to take a hammer to it. She pulls out the whisky, scattering the bottles of bleach and detergent like ninepins, yanks the top off and splashes out an eye-wateringly large measure into a glass from the draining board.

The fire of the alcohol on her tongue does little to soothe. She takes another slug anyway. Leaning forward over the counter, she props her elbow on the top, rests her forehead on the heel of her hand and groans through her teeth.

Why does he always have to be so, _so_ infuriating? Can’t he for once just, just…

She doesn’t even know exactly what she wants him to do. Be less… something? More something?

It’s not that she wants him to be less himself. Less Lucifer. No matter what he might accuse her of, she doesn’t ever want him to pretend to be different for her. She just wants him to realise that sometimes the things he says and does are…

“Fuck.”

She pulls off her jacket and chucks it carelessly at the back of the sofa. True to form it hits the cushions, hangs for a hopeful moment, then slithers to the floor. Chloe glares at it, as though the sheer power of her displeasure will levitate it back off the ground. No such luck.

She needs a bath. Hot water, bubble bath, another half a glass of whisky. Some time alone to not replay the argument – shouting match, it’s not like he was responding to a word she was saying – over and over again on the screen of her memories till the rerun of his expression etches itself into her mind’s eye like acid engraving.

Thank goodness Trixie is with Dan this evening.

She tugs her phone from her pocket, silences it and tosses it without looking onto the sofa as she passes. She’ll risk missing a call from the precinct for some time completely alone. Turning the hot tap on max and pouring in a quantity of bubble bath somewhere between excessive and ridiculous, she waits till steam is rising in billows from the tub before turning on the cold and leaving it to fill. A brief mental debate decides that no, she doesn’t want to read. She wants to close her eyes, deactivate her brain and just indulge in luxuriating. She unearths her pyjamas from under her pillow, hangs them on the bedroom radiator to warm, tops up her whisky in the kitchen and returns to the bathroom just as the bathwater reaches optimum depth and the bubbles rise in a precarious mountain over the rim.

A treacherous part of her subconscious whispers that she only managed the timing so perfectly because she got so much practice at this when things were going catastrophically wrong with Dan. She stamps viciously down on the thought. That’s _not_ what this is. Not by a long shot. This is just… she needs to cool off. They both do. That’s all.

It’s fine.

She undresses as fast as she can get her clothes off. She tries to keep her mind blank and work on autopilot. Quickly she bundles the clothes into the laundry hamper and steps into the water. Sinking down, she submerges herself up to the chin, closes her eyes and breathes deeply. The water laps around her, just the right side of too hot to leech the tension from her muscles. Picking up her whisky, she takes a small sip, rests the glass on the edge of the bath. Wills herself to relax.

She’s never been good at turning her brain off.

***

Forty-five minutes of soaking work wonders on Chloe’s aching back. The tense lines that have been drawn taught in her shoulders since she arrived at the crime scene this morning have eased, the tension stiffening her spine has melted into an easy slump.

It hasn’t done much for the state of her mind. No matter how hard she’s tried to wash away her thoughts with heat and time, all she’s been able to do is transmute frustrated anger into a bitter, acrid taste of loss and regret on the back of her tongue.

The cooling of the water finally forces her out of the tub. Towelling herself down, throwing on her warm pyjamas and wrapping herself in an ancient hoody, she heads through to the living room to curl up on the sofa with her slowly emptying glass and try to drown out the insistent clamour in her head with mindless television. Swirling her glass absently with one hand, she flips channels with the other, scanning past news, re-runs, more re-runs, reality TV, more news…

CNN flashes up and her thumb freezes mid-press. Paparazzi shots from the morning’s crime scene plaster the screen. The broken glass, the blood, the harsh blue blare of the emergency lights. The screen cuts to images of the victims, banners with their names spooling underneath, and the all-too familiar anger seethes up in her stomach. Her arm moves automatically out, reaching to take the hand that her subconscious expects to always be within easy reach. The closing of her fingers on empty air jolts sickeningly through her.

She snatches her hand back, swallowing hard.

A desperate desire to see him rises in her chest, mingling uneasily with the residue of her anger. Turning off the TV, she leans her head down to rest on the arm of the sofa. Half of her wants to call him, just hear the reassuring sound of his voice. The other half feels like hearing one word from him would refuel her frustration and drop them straight back into the same argument at exactly the point they’d broken it off. Bring them back to the same impasse where he kept blindly refusing to hear anything she was telling him.

All of this could have been avoided if he’d actually listened to a word she was saying.

Well.

Okay. Maybe she hadn’t exactly tried to listen to a word _he_ was saying either. The inner voice of her conscience is small but insistent. This isn’t all on him.

“Only mostly,” she mutters. It’s half-hearted. She doesn’t want to stay angry with him, not if she’s being honest with herself. She’s not saying he was right, but maybe now the indignant fire of her anger has cooled they can talk about it like actual adults. Reach some kind of reasonable conclusion. Not scream till one of them throws their hands up and walks out.

The memory of his face after she’d said that, _that one thing_ flares across her vision again. She winces. Yeah. All right. Half of this is on her.

Sighing, she looks around for her phone. She can at least send a halfway conciliatory text. Then she’s made an effort and maybe she’ll feel less like she half brought this on herself.

It takes her a good few moments to find her phone where it’s slipped between the sofa cushion and the seat back. When she finally does fish it out the message light is flashing. Swiping it open, she finds she has three spam emails, texts from Ella and Dan and two missed calls. The first of those is from Dan too.

The second is from Lucifer.

She stares at her screen.

She hadn’t expected him to be the one to reach out first. It’s stupid now she thinks about it. He’s always so apologetic, so contrite when he hurts her, even accidentally. But still. She hadn’t thought.

And he’d called her nearly an hour ago, right after she put her phone on silent. Only half an hour after she’d left him on the street corner mid blazing row.

He’s left her a voicemail. Her thumb hovers over the button to listen to it. What should she be expecting? Anger? Apology?

She takes a steadying breath. Dials.

“Hello love.”

Lucifer’s voice is soft. There’s no anger to it. The accusatory undercurrent of earlier is completely gone. He just sounds sad. Exhausted.

“I don’t know if…” He pauses. She can picture his face, the way he’d have twisted his mouth to the side, stiffened his spine to make himself brave. “I don’t know if you’ll want to hear my voice right now but I had to call.” There’s a quiet whispering of wind behind him. She wonders if he was on his balcony when he called, leaning over the rail, looking out towards her house. “I had to tell you I’m… I’m sorry.”

Chloe drops her head back onto the sofa cushion. She hadn’t let herself realise until that moment exactly how much she’d wanted to hear those words. She feels almost drunk with the relief, the release of their echo in her ears.

“Honestly, I don’t care who was right anymore,” his message continues. “It doesn’t matter. It was a stupid thing to argue over.” He stops again. She hears him breathe in, let out a sigh so full of regret she can taste it on her tongue. “What _does_ matter is that I love you. So much it terrifies me and I don’t know what to do about it so I invariably end up doing something stupid to hurt you. Again.” He laughs a little, low and barely audible, but enough to stab Chloe in the heart with how self-loathing it sounds. “But I do. I just wanted you to know that.”

There’s another silence. Footsteps sound on the line, shoes on tile, as though he’s pacing his apartment. Chloe bites her lip hard. Her heart is desperate for her to respond, to tell him she knows, she _knows_ , she loves him, she’s sorry too, but she’s too late. She breathes it anyway, as though he’ll feel her emotion behind the words across the breadth of the city.

“I don’t want to hang up.” Lucifer laughs again, genuinely this time. “I want to keep hold of a part of you, even if it is your voicemail. I can almost hear you laughing at me for that, Detective.” Chloe shakes her head, covering her eyes with her hand. No. She’s not laughing. She feels the same desire to cling onto their connection even now, just listening to his recorded voice.

“So I’m not going to.” Halfway through the sentence Lucifer’s words move away from her ear, pick up an echo. A click reverberates behind him talking. A couple of gentle notes sound and bring with them the realisation that he’d put his phone on speaker and left it on the piano top. He picks out a few more notes as he speaks again.

“I never understood this song before I met you,” he comments drily, before letting a melody take over.

The music is simple by his standards, but there’s a sincerity to the notes that she only hears when he plays in private. A part of him that he holds back from the night club crowds, reserves for the two of them to share. She knows he’ll have closed his eyes, leaned into the keys, let the rhythm sway through him and run his emotion out through his fingertips. She can feel it there behind every note before he even opens his mouth.

When he does start to sing, it’s not with his usual exuberance despite the upbeat tune. Instead there’s a tenderness, an ache to voice that speaks directly to her soul.

“Even though I’m in love, sometimes I get so afraid…”

The deep cadence of his voice vibrates through her. She closes her eyes, sinks into its warm embrace. The music carries her, enwraps her and lifts her out of herself until she could almost believe herself on his sofa rather than hers, listening to him play only a few steps away from her. Close enough to reach out and pull close.

Her voicemail cuts out halfway through the song. The abrupt harsh beep in her ear jars her back to reality, nearly making her drop her phone. Hissing through her teeth, she ends the call, shakes her head clear. Suddenly bereft, she stares around her living room. Its emptiness is a cruel mirror of the void cracked open under her ribs.

Her fingers move without thought. She unlocks her phone again, hits redial and has it held to her ear before she can think.

It only rings once.

“Detective!” Lucifer answers with his usual greeting. “I see you got my message.”

Though his voice is superficially cheerful, she’s learnt enough by now to see straight through all of his masks. Underneath his tone is run through with uncertainty, a conviction that _something_ bad is coming. It’s an undercurrent she’s heard from beaten spouses, abused children. Far too often from him.

A horrible jolt of dawning comprehension jars her whole body. He doesn’t know what she’s going to say. He honestly thinks she might reject him. Because still, still after all this time he doesn’t think he’s worthy of her forgiveness.

She’d meant to thank him for the song, tell him she knows what he was trying to say, but the realisation overwrites her brain and spills words out of her.

“I love you,” she tells him with sincerity that goes down right through her bones. “I _love_ you.”

She feels him exhale relief as much as she hears it.

“And I’m sorry too,” she carries on before he can speak. “You’re right, it was a pointless argument. I shouldn’t have said half the things I did.” A pause. “Most of the things I did.”

“All forgotten,” he replies, serious. “If you forget all the idiotic things _I_ said.”

“Done. I don’t even remember what we’re talking about.” The smile pulls wide on her face at his laugh in response to her joke. That awful bass line of bitterness has slipped away from his voice. To her relief, now he simply sounds delighted.

“Will you finish the song for me?” She asks. “I appreciated the sentiment, but the voicemail ended halfway through.”

He hums, pleased. “Of course.”

A rustle as he rises, then the soft sound of his feet on the floor. She curls her feet under her and wraps her arm around her knees. Once again, she hears him position his phone on the piano top then play a few introductory notes, and closes her eyes in anticipation. The opening bars set warm content pooling in her chest.

“You know I learnt this just so I could be contrite in musical form,” he tells her suddenly. “I have a playlist of songs for different forms of apology.”

The laugh snorts out of her. She can’t help herself.

"You are... the most... the most _ridiculous..._ " She can't finish the sentence. She slumps down onto her back, pressing her hand to her mouth and laughing until tears start in her eyes.

“This one worked exceptionally well,” he says, sounding thoroughly satisfied, then segues smoothly into the lyrics without missing a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy Joel - Leave a tender moment alone


	4. Gorgeous

“Dan, you cannot be serious.”

“Chloe, I’m sorry.”

“Dan, you…”

“No Chloe, listen. I really am sorry. But this is absolutely not my fault.”

Chloe closes her eyes and thunks her forehead on the window in front of her. Of all the worst, godawful, cursed timing.

“The doctors say I should be out tomorrow.” Dan’s voice through her phone sounds even more exhausted than she feels. His words slur a little at the edges and his breathing is rough, drawing out the gaps between his words. “I wanted to sign out AMA, but you know how medical professionals get about head injuries…”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry Dan, I should be more sympathetic, but…” Chloe opens her eyes again and looks down at the traffic in the street below without really registering anything beyond a blur of movement. She rubs her free hand across her face. “You’re meant to be picking Trixie up from school in an hour. It’s way too late to get a babysitter, Maze is still on holiday with Linda and I’m _literally_ on the other side of the country. Couldn’t you have picked a different day to get pistol whipped by a suspect?”

“He didn’t want to reschedule the appointment.”

Against her better judgement, Chloe almost smiles.

“I knew this would happen.” She bites her lip unconsciously. “Before I even got on the damn plane to this stupid, useless conference, I _knew_ this would happen.”

“It’s all right.” Dan’s voice is pitched at soothing. “I’ve got a plan. I just.” He pauses. “I wanted to check said plan with you first so that you don’t. You know.” He hesitates. “Freak out about it.”

Chloe blinks. Her heartbeat is suddenly loud in her hears.

“What? Why would I… Dan? What plan?”

There’s a moment of silence in which Chloe thinks her heart might burst out of her chest or her stomach drop through her shoes with stress before Dan finally sighs and answers.

“I was going to ask Lucifer.”

“You were…” Chloe stops, replays what he just said in her head to make sure she heard it right. “You were going to ask… no wait, let me rephrase. _You_ were going to ask Lucifer? You. Daniel Espinoza. Who last week told me you wouldn’t trust Lucifer to tie your shoelaces. Now you want to call and ask him to pick Trixie up from school? And then look after her till you’re discharged? And that doesn’t sound a recipe for absolute disaster to you?”

Dan huffs at her. She can picture the face he’s pulling as he makes the sound, clearly as if he were beside her.

“He is pretty much the only option right now Chloe. It’s not like I would if there were any other choice.” Dan pauses for a second. “Besides. I do trust him to take care of you. Just… maybe not so much pre-teen children.”

Chloe opens her mouth to argue, stops. Closes it again. He’s probably got a point.

“Anyway,” Dan continues, his tone becoming pointed, “for some inexplicable reason known only to you, you seem to be getting increasingly serious about him. And if he’s going to be in a relationship with you long-term he needs to get used to the fact that Trixie will be his responsibility too. Right?”

Shaking her head, Chloe considers arguing, but there’s nothing she can say to refute him that doesn’t ring hollow even inside her own head. She _is_ getting to the point with Lucifer where she’s thinking in the long-term. Last week Lucifer had casually mentioned _the rest of their lives together_ and somehow it _hadn’t_ floored her completely. It had felt obvious. Like the concept of choosing each other, keeping on choosing each other every day for every day they had left, was the easiest thing in existence. And Lucifer is choosing her, then he’s choosing Trixie too.

Dan is absolutely, infuriatingly right.

Damn him.

“Fine!” She actually throws her hand up in the air in capitulation, earning her a startled glance from a passing officer. “Fine, you’re right. But I’ll call him. He’ll take it better coming from me.”

***

The catered dinner feels like it lasts decades. It’s a high-end restaurant with food so fancy it only comes in minuscule portions on plates like sombreros, but she’s too distracted to taste any of it.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust Lucifer. She does. Implicitly. With her life. It’s that he doesn’t have the faintest idea how to raise a child. She’s fairly certain he won’t give her alcohol or let her drive the car, but other than that…

She might be weaning Trixie back off chocolate cake for a month.

And if he helps her with her homework she’ll be apologising to the school till Trixie graduates.

She doesn’t stay for drinks at the bar.

A faked headache and an Uber get her back to her hotel room as quickly as humanly possible, but with Chicago traffic it’s still not quick. She has her phone in her hand from the moment she steps into the elevator, and she’s firing up Facetime before she’s even got her shoes off inside her room.

Flopping down onto the bed, she unconsciously hunches forward and stares at her phone screen as it rings. Willing Trixie to pick up. One ring… two… three… her stomach twists, knotting itself into too tightly, till she thinks all the expensive food she’d forced down is going to come straight back out.

“Hey mummy!” Trixie’s face appears. She waves excitedly, shaking the phone so much Chloe feels momentarily dizzy.

“Hey, baby.” The relief is strong, intoxicating like she’s downed half a bottle of whisky on an empty stomach, but it doesn’t quite drown out all the worry chewing at her ribs. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great mummy. I’m having the _best_ time!”

Trixie finally holds the phone still to talk and Chloe quickly looks her over. No chocolate all over her face, that seems hopeful. And she’s actually wearing her pyjamas. Miracle.

“You are? What have you been doing?” She looks past Trixie at the slivers of background visible behind her. Frowns. That’s not… that looks like… “Trixie.” She interrupts her daughter’s gush of words that she’d barely registered any of. “Why are you in Lucifer’s penthouse? You were meant to go home.”

“I know.” Trixie doesn’t look at all concerned. “Lucifer said he had to work so we came here instead.”

Irritation bubbles up in her throat, but before she can say anything Lucifer’s voice sounds from somewhere in the background.

“Is that your mother?”

Trixie glances up, nodding, and a moment later Lucifer pokes his head into frame next to hers. Despite being sideways, he’s still managing to give Chloe his most charming grin.

“Hello darling,” he says, voice warm and soft with adoration and she almost forgets she wants to ask what on earth he thinks he’s doing, taking Trixie back to his nightclub and on a school night too. She can’t help herself when he looks at her like that. He just melts all the irritation out of her.

Shaking herself mentally, she forces herself to frown. “Lucifer, what…”

He cuts her off, clearly seeing where her mind is going. “Sorry, Detective. I need to be around Lux tonight. Big event. But don’t worry, that’s later, after bed time. And the child has solemnly promised that she will _not_ set foot out of the penthouse on the threat of dire punishment. Isn’t that right?” He bumps Trixie’s shoulder meaningfully and Trixie nods, eyes wide.

“He’ll get Amenadiel to come and lecture me about the Bible,” she hisses. _“All night.”_

Chloe blinks. She stares at Trixie’s horrified face. Then the laughter starts to rise. It surges up from her feet, up her chest and burst out uncontrollably, sending her flopping down onto her back, hand clamped over her mouth and giggles escaping around her fingers. Trixie pouts at her and Lucifer gives her this ridiculous pleased grin that just makes everything worse. It takes her chest cramping and tears starting in her eyes for her to finally manage to get a grip on herself.

“You’d better be really, _really_ good then, hadn’t you monkey?” She wipes her face with the back of her hand and presses her lips closed against another burst of giggles as Trixie rolls her eyes. “Sorry baby. What were you telling me before? About your day?”

She rolls onto her stomach and props her chin on her hand to listen properly this time.

“Lucifer made me cocktails!” Trixie grabs a glass from the table next to her and waves it at the camera. It’s half-full of something heinously pink. There are cherries. And a cocktail umbrella. A glittery one.

“Oh?” Chloe raises her eyebrows. That is the least Lucifer-looking drink she has ever seen.

“It’s a good skill to learn, Detective. Virtuously non-alcoholic of course.”

Lucifer reappears in the frame, sitting down on the sofa next to Trixie. She immediately attaches herself to his side. Chloe expects him to protest, but to her surprise he simply drapes his arm across the back cushions and lets Trixie adhere to him like a limpet. He raises his own glass to the camera and Chloe realises with an even greater stab of shock that it’s not his usual straight whisky. It actually looks the same as whatever terrifying concoction Trixie is delighting in. He must understand her expression because he shrugs at her and tilts his glass in acknowledgement.

“Alcohol free all round,” he says in his best long-suffering tone. “We’re being _very_ responsible, aren’t we child?”

A rush of affection blooms hot and strong in Chloe’s chest. She’d known he’d come a long way from expecting Trixie to play fetch, but she hadn’t realised he’d take the responsibility of caring for her so seriously and actually do it well.

Watching them there, curled on the sofa with the soft glow of the lamps touching golden on their skin, Chloe feels a stab of loneliness right through her heart. It’s an unexpected, bitter reminder of what she lost when everything went wrong with Dan. This comfortable, easy domesticity, this warmth from just being surrounded by love. She feels lopsided here, alone in her hotel room, the gulf of empty space around her pulling her off-centre.

She swallows, throat burning.

“When I come home we have to have a sleepover together, all of us. I feel like I’m missing out.” She thinks it comes out normal, but Lucifer’s smile falters ever so slightly. His gaze intensifies on her face, worry creasing his brow. She curses internally and tries a reassuring smile. His mouth twists slightly. Clearly he’s not buying it.

“Lucifer, can we play some music?”

Both Lucifer and Chloe jump, startled at Trixie’s abrupt question.

 “What?” He looks down at her, frown morphing from concern to confusion. Trixie pulls on his shirt sleeve, bouncing a little in excitement.

“You said you’d play me some piano!” Trixie says, authoritative. “Like you do for mummy. Will you?” There’s a pause then she remembers herself. “Please?”

Lucifer frowns, but Chloe nods encouragement.

“Go on,” she reinforces the request. “I’ve had the longest day, music would be lovely.”

He shoots her a glance. He’s no fool, he knows when she’s deliberately manipulating him. But he also likes showing off too much not to fall for it.

“No requesting any songs by hideous teenage boybands,” he warns Trixie, face stern but eyes crinkling at the edges in amusement. She nods solemnly.

“Right.” Lucifer sweeps Trixie up in one arm, stands and heads for the piano. For a bewildering moment all Chloe gets through the phone is a golden blur accented with Trixie’s giggles, then Lucifer sets Trixie on her feet. He takes her phone and props it on the piano top, angled so Chloe can see the both of them. Trixie is practically bouncing with anticipation.

“Your mother gets first choice,” Lucifer says as he opens the cover on the keys. At once Trixie turns and gives her mother a Look. Chloe knows that look. It says with absolute clarity that she’d better pick something that Trixie likes and not some sappy love song for your _boyfriend_ to sing at you _mum._

Fair enough.

“Love me now? John Legend?” Chloe decides after a moment. It _is_ something she’d like to hear Lucifer sing to her, but she knows Trixie likes it too, and she feels like the feeling behind it might resonate with him. Besides, she figures he’s got the voice to carry it off. Sure enough, he inclines his head and obliges.

Settling more comfortably onto her stomach, Chloe watches him lean into the song, letting the notes carry him. Watching the way the music moves him, the way he lets himself go to it, never fails to enrapture her. The honey-gold warmth of his voice always runs right through to her bones, filling her with the strongest feeling of security she’s ever known.

Trixie clearly feels something similar, since she keeps stopping singing and dancing just to watch him. He doesn’t seem to mind, even shifting over on the piano stool so Trixie can perch next to him and watch his fingers dance across the keys.

He runs through a few more songs at their requests – Hozier, George Ezra, Shawn Mendes, one Emeli Sandé song that Chloe’s frankly _amazed_ he can hit some of the notes for – throws in a brief section of Simple Minds’ _Don’t you forget about me_ obviously specifically chosen to make Chloe laugh. There’s been nothing he’s rolled his eyes at more than perfunctorily and Chloe’s starting to sink into a comfortable, comforted doze. Then Trixie decides to throw in a curveball.

“Gorgeous!

“What?” Lucifer raises his eyebrows, utterly perplexed. Chloe almost facepalms. Of all the songs to choose…

“Taylor Swift.” Trixie explains impatiently.

Lucifer immediately pulls his hands from the keys and turns to stare down at her in horror.

 _“Taylor Swift?”_ He repeats, incredulous.

“Don’t you know it?” Trixie sags, crestfallen.

“Of course I _know_ it.” Despite his expressed dislike, he’s clearly needled at the suggestion that there’s anything at all that he can’t play. “Popular music is half my livelihood. It doesn’t mean I _want_ to play it.”

“Pleeeaaase?” Trixie drapes herself over his arm and affixes him with her most beseeching stare. “It’s one of my _favourites._ ”

Lucifer glances at Chloe, expression a picture of resignation.

“That is one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard.” He shakes his head and takes a fortifying gulp of his drink, but he does shoo Trixie off him and turn back to the keys. Trixie yelps in delight and jumps up to dance again.

“ _You_ can sing this,” Lucifer shoots to Trixie over his shoulder before launching into a stripped-down version of the melody.

Trixie sings enthusiastically, spinning in and out of view in a spontaneous dance routine. Chloe finds herself humming along, caught up in Trixie’s vibrant enthusiasm. For the first minute or so Lucifer plays with a particularly aggrieved expression that on anyone else would be exaggerated, but on him is probably entirely honest. Chloe catches his eye and grins at him, allowing herself to indulge in enjoying his evident exasperation.

Then the second verse hits and Lucifer’s expression changes. He smiles suddenly, genuinely. Chloe blinks at him, not understanding his abrupt shift in reaction to the music. The end of the verse comes. His eyes shift soft and tender as he holds her gaze and just loud enough for her to hear sings along with one line in a voice run through with emotion.

_“I feel like I might sink and drown and die…”_

Chloe’s whole being yearns towards him then. Her heart pounds painfully against the cage of her ribs, desperate to be closer to him.

How on _earth_ can he take a light-hearted pop song and make her feel like _this_?

“Mummy, sing with me!” Trixie swings back into frame and the moment shatters. Chloe starts and Lucifer’s hands almost falter before he catches himself. She takes a deep breath, swallows, watches the line of his throat as he does the same and feels…

“Mummy!” Trixie appears again and Chloe wrenches her gaze away from Lucifer, looks at her daughter, finds a genuine smile.

“Sorry, sweetie.” Pulling herself together, Chloe finds their place in the song and joins in. She’s never been the best singer, but she manages to keep the tune and Trixie’s satisfied, dancing back out of shot.

Chloe carries on singing, but she allows her eyes to slide back to Lucifer. He’s watching her again, mouth tugged into a tiny smile, eyes knowing. She meets his gaze and thinks yes, cheesy pop song or not, there’s an element of truth to that one line that she can’t deny.

And watching Lucifer there, drinking virgin cocktails and playing silly music without a word of complaint, while her daughter glows with joy in the background, she knows she doesn’t want to deny it. She’ll go with it quite happily if it means she gets to keep this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taylor Swift - Gorgeous


	5. The heart asks pleasure first

Chloe bounces impatiently on her heels as the elevator ascends. It’s not a slow ride, but it still feels far too long. It’s the last obstacle between her and Lucifer, the last bit of travelling she has to complete before finally, _finally_ seeing him again.

Five days on the other side of the country has really put into perspective quite how much she wants to have him in her life.

She wonders if she’ll say it today. Tell him she loves him.

She’s been holding back from it for a while now. Not out of uncertainty, not at all. Just… She knows he loves her. It’s beyond obvious in every word he says, every last thing he does for her. But he hasn’t said it yet. Not the actual words. After all that he’s endured over millennia, literal thousands of years, so long she cannot comprehend, it’s a difficult sentence for him to say out loud.

And that’s fine. She can wait for the rest of her life for him to find his way to saying it. But she doesn’t want to derail him by coming out with it herself too soon.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open. Chloe steps out, face breaking into an involuntary smile before she’s even set eyes on him.  She spots him at his piano, silhouetted against the sunset flaming red-gold across the windows. He’s playing something, playing it like he does when they’re alone, whole body swaying with the rhythm, the music drawing him in as it’s drawn out of his fingers. Her smile widens and she steps quickly forward.

Then she stops.

Whatever he’s playing it’s…

It’s not something she’s ever heard him play before. The notes of it dig strangely into her head, sink hooks into her ribs and pull at her. A dozen different emotions bubble up unbidden, swirling up her chest in a heady, incomprehensible rush. She breathes in sharply with the surprise of it.

The sound rings sharp against the soft music. Lucifer immediately stops playing, swings around on his seat. He sees her and a delighted smile blooms on his face in a mirror of her own.

He abandons the piano and almost runs to greet her. He practically throws his arms around her, lifts her right off her feet with the strength of his embrace. Laughing, she winds her arms around his neck and clings on until he puts her down. As soon as her feet touch ground she tip-toes up, pulls him down by the collar and kisses him with all the intent that’s been building inside her since he left her at the airport. His arm slides around her waist, presses her close and he sighs, melting against her.

Five days she’s been waiting to do this. It feels like an eternity.

Her heart is beating high and hard in her chest when they break apart. He’s breathless, eyes bright on hers and smile tender. He brings both his hands to frame her face and strokes his thumbs across her cheekbones.

“Hello, love.” He says and she realises with a jolt of amusement that it’s the first thing either of them has said since she arrived.

“Are you glad to see me?” She flutters her eyelashes at him, pulling a deliberately exaggerated pout. “It’s so hard to tell.”

Lucifer grins, completely unembarrassed.

“Next time you’ll have to take me with you,” he says, pressing another kiss to her temple. “I literally pined. Maze almost lost her mind. Next time she will actually kill me.”

Chloe snorts an inelegant laugh. She can just picture the face Maze would have made to accompany that threat.

“It was five days, Lucifer,” she teases, momentarily choosing to forget how much _she_ had longed to go back to _him_. “How much moping can you even fit into five days?”

“Oh, a frankly spectacular amount.”

She laughs again, tucking her face back against his neck. The knowledge that he missed her as intensely as she had him sets off a bright, happy glow in her chest that makes her feel almost dizzy with contentment.

Lucifer kisses her hair then taps her back gently.

“Drink?” He offers. She nods and he breaks away from her enough to slide one arm around her and hug her to his side. He pulls her behind the bar with him, clearly unwilling to completely let go of her. His left arm stays tucked around her back, palm pressed warm against her hip, even as he fetches and pours her choice of wine and a whisky for himself one-handed.

“What was that you were playing?” Chloe asks as he hands her the glass. The memory of it is tugging in the corners of her mind, conjuring that jumble of emotions every time she lets her mind drift back.

“I’m not really sure.” Lucifer shrugs. Chloe blinks, reruns what he said in her head.

“You’re not… how can you be playing it if you don’t know?”

“It was in a film I was too busy sulking to watch properly last night,” he says, then pauses while Chloe gets her sudden giggles under control. “I did _tell_ you I can mope like a champion. But yes.” He tugs at her until she walks with him, over to the piano. “I don’t know what the film was, but the music stayed with me. I spent all morning working it out.”

“From memory?” Chloe is honestly impressed by that. She’d known he was an excellent musician, but to have heard something so complicated on the television then play it…

Surprisingly, Lucifer doesn’t take the opportunity to brag. Instead he nods once, then sits down on the stool, bringing her down with him. Slipping his arm free, he puts his glass on the piano top and tips his head at her. She nods and he straightens a little, begins to play.

The notes are complex, twining over and around each other in a stream of intensity. Once again, something about it hooks under Chloe’s ribs from the first chord. She glances at Lucifer. He seems to be feeling something similar. His fingers dance effortlessly over the keys, but his face is coloured with a curious expression she can’t place.

He feels her watching him and leans slightly towards her.

“It made me think of you,” he says softly, almost too quiet to hear.

Chloe isn’t surprised. He only ever plays this way, leaning into the music and pouring himself into every note, when he’s playing solely for her. Still, it always touches her when he chooses songs specifically to say something directly to her. From him, she can’t imagine any gesture more intensely personal.

“There’s something about it that… echoes. An element, the smallest piece of how I feel for you.”

A blush rises inexorably, staining her face with heat and she’s suddenly half glad he’s so focused on the studied movement of his hands. Concealing her fluster behind her glass, she too turns to watch his fingers, the absolute certainty with which they touch the keys.

An element of how he feels… She listens more closely, feeling the rush of the notes, the insistent power of the melody wrapping itself around them both. It feels inevitable, but welcoming in its inescapability. Sincere, like a promise made tangible in the air. It slips into her heart with the ease of something long known, long desired.

She rests her hand on his knee. He pauses for a beat, questioning, until she shakes her head and he continues. The music turns yearning, reaching out for something absent, lost, and she thinks that of all the ways to desire someone, this surely has to be the most biting. It pulls her heart from her ribs, seeking after him even as he sits close at her side. She leans in to him helplessly. She doesn’t want him to stop playing, she doesn’t think she ever wants him to stop playing, but she has to touch him, the solid reality of him. She _has_ to.

The music only loosens its grip when he begins to wind down, fingers slowing and melody drawing out long. Sniffing a little, Chloe straightens, runs her hand through her hair. Tries to breathe deep to untangle the knotted mess her insides have become.

“I see what you mean,” she manages, as though that comment can encompass anything of how much she understands and shares his empathy with the emotion that piece evokes. He hums in response, glancing over at her and flashing a brief but genuine smile.

“Do you think there’s a song that can say all of what you feel?” She asks, mostly joking. She knows there’s no music that could summarise her own feelings, but she’d like to hear what he’s considered.

He doesn’t respond with a joke of his own. His hands still. He turns to face her fully. Tilting his head, he watches her with a depth of softness in his expression that catches her breath in her throat. The fading sunlight bathes his skin gold, lights hints of bronze in the depths of his eyes, and he smiles at her like just seeing her is enough to bring light to his whole world.

“Entire symphonies can’t come close to capturing what I feel about you.”

Her heart feels like it might burst.

“Lucifer, I…” He takes her hands and she stops. She doesn’t know what she would have said anyway. How to put the entirety of the emotion she feels for him into words that come anywhere close.

“Chloe.” He says her name with a tenderness that never fails to move her. “I think you’ve been holding back from saying something – a particular thing – for a while now.” She goes to speak again but he shakes his head, looks down at their hands resting on his knees. “I know why you have. And I am grateful for it.” He strokes his thumb across the inside of her wrist. There’s nothing erotic to the motion, but it feels like the most intimate touch on the exposed edge of her soul. “It gave me time to realise, to accept how _I_ feel. To be comfortable with it, and be ready to tell you.”

Chloe swallows hard against the sudden lump in her throat. Lucifer looks back up at her, catches her eye. A tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

“Chloe,” he repeats, soft and low. “I love you.”

The rush of delight comes up from the bottom of her soul. It sweeps through her, filling her with a glorious golden glow so bright she can’t think. Can’t feel anything but her own _I love you I love you I love you._

She couldn’t hold herself back from him if the world hung in the balance. Her arms go around him before she can think and she hugs herself to him so tight it hurts. His answering embrace is softer, his hands sweeping up her back in a gentle caress, his cheek coming down to rest on her hair.

She curls her fingers into his shirt, turns her face into his neck and breathes him in. She can feel the beat of his heart against her chest in time with her own, and she knows. She knows there will never be another moment quite so perfect as this.

No. Just one thing. One more thing.

Opening her eyes, Chloe sits up. He only lets her go reluctantly, pulling gently to try to keep her close, but she wants to look him in the eye. She wants him to see how much she means it on her face. Leaning towards him, she cups her hands around his jaw and tries to put every bit of emotion into her eyes.

“Lucifer,” she says, smiling as she echoes his words. “I love you too.”

And his smile is like the break of dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael Nyman - The heart asks pleasure first


	6. Light in the hallway

It’s a feeling of loneliness that brings Chloe back to the surface of consciousness. For a moment she lies, hovering on the cusp between sleep and wakefulness, unsure what has pulled her out of her dreams, before her conscious mind latches on to what her subconscious had noticed. Her arm is stretched out in front of her across the mattress where she reached out in her sleep, but instead of the warm body she had been seeking her hand is lying closed on empty air.

She frowns, opens her eyes. The darkness is briefly complete until she blinks and her vision adjusts to the meagre glow of moonlight filtering around the curtains. The shape of the room forms out of the shadows. Wardrobe, chest of drawers, bedside table with looming lamp, larger somehow in the darkness than by daylight. But there’s one shape that’s conspicuous only by its absence. There’s no second person. No tall form sprawled across the other side of the bed, creeping into her space with invading limbs.

He can’t have been gone that long. When she places her palm on the sheets there’s still a lingering vestige of warmth. And the duvet is pushed back with uncharacteristic untidiness so he’s probably intending to come straight back. Bathroom maybe. Or the kitchen for a glass of water.

Satisfied, Chloe lets her eyes drift back closed. She leaves her hand lying next to his pillow, an invitation that she knows he’ll recognise and take when he returns.

She’s just slipping back into the cotton wool clouds of sleep when she hears voices.

Her cop brain has her upright and half out of bed before she recognises the cadence. It’s not a burglar, no matter what her hair-trigger nerves might insist. Muffled by a closed door or not, Lucifer’s voice is still familiar down to the core of her being.

A phone call? Chloe glances over to the bedside table. No, his phone is still resting by the lamp where he always leaves it. So he must be talking to Trixie.

Her mother instincts immediately unfurl a tendril of sick worry that twines around her insides and knots tight. A glance at her phone confirms that it’s coming up on 3am. Trixie should be sound asleep for hours yet.

Wide awake in a fraction of a second, Chloe pushes the duvet aside and swings herself upright. Snagging a hoodie from the wardrobe, she pads quickly to the door and cracks it open. Lucifer’s voice comes clearer as she pulls it wider, not so much yet to hear the words, but enough to tell which direction it’s coming from. It doesn’t draw her towards Trixie’s room as she expected, but instead down the hall to the living room. Toes curling on the cold of the floor, Chloe hugs the hoodie around herself and slips after the sound.

A lamp is on low in the living room. The glow of it dapples across the walls, texturing the darkness rather than banishing it. In the velvety dimness it takes her a moment to spot them, but then she spies a figure outlined against the blackness of the window. The curtain has been pushed back and Lucifer is standing silhouetted, looking out at the night sky. He’s got Trixie in his arms.

He’s holding her easily, one arm cradling her snugly against his side as though she’s a tiny child, as though she weighs nothing at all. Her arms are clutched around his neck and her head rests on his shoulder, face turned to press into his shirt. The little Chloe can see of Trixie’s face between her arms and the tangle of her bed-ruffled hair shows one eye closed tight over a tear-streaked cheek.

Chloe bites her lip. Her heart aches to spring forward, to take her child and comfort her. But.

She doesn’t need to. Trixie is quiet. Calm. Her tear-tracks are drying and her breathing is easy and slow, the catches of sobs in the back of her throat smoothing away into sleep. Lucifer is leaning his head towards Trixie’s and he’s singing to her softly, his voice dropped into the low, soothing rumble that had carried across the house and pulled Chloe from her dreams. He’s rocking Trixie gently back and forth, following the cadence of his own voice.

She doesn’t recognise the words. It’s not any lullaby she knows. Still, in his voice it feels like a memory. An echo of something like home. The reassurance of the lyrics matches with the familiar fall of his voice and grounds her in absolute security.

It’s no wonder Trixie has fallen so swiftly back into soothed sleep. Even here, across the room in the shadow of the wall, the harmony wraps Chloe in a certainty of safety more absolute than she can remember feeling in the longest time. The knowledge that she is never, will never be alone.

Her heart flutters with a depth of emotion she can barely begin to comprehend.

Then he hits a line and his voice falters on the words. His breath catches in slightly and he twitches, breaking from his rocking rhythm.

Chloe feels the resonance of the lyrics in her own heart, a delicate blade sliding quick through muscle and down to the bone. She sees the knife edge of it cut sharp across his face as he twists his mouth and ducks his head to the side.

Immediately she breaks from her shadow. She’s across the room in three steps, hand reaching out to touch his arm without conscious thought.

He starts a little at the contact, jerks round, but relaxes entirely at the sight of Chloe.

“Sorry.” He takes her hand with his free one, holds just a little too tight for a second.

Chloe shakes her head, presses her other hand to his chest and he breathes in, relaxes. His grip loosens and he smiles at her properly, eyes warming in the low glow of the lights.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” He says, apologetic. “You need you sleep after your daring pursuit this evening.”

Chloe huffs a laugh, half pleased, half amused. “I’m used to it.” She looks over to Trixie, rests her hand lightly on her daughter’s back. Trixie snuffles and Chloe’s mouth twitches. “Is she all right?”

Lucifer tips his head noncommittally. “She dreamt about you getting shot again. She knew it wasn’t real, but still.”

Chloe frowns, distressed. Much as she loves her job, much as she doesn’t want to give it up, seeing it impact on her daughter never fails to sink bolts of pure guilt into her heart. It’s one thing to willingly put herself in danger, to make the choice to risk herself, but to have it reverberate in Trixie’s life, on Trixie’s security is something different, something completely unjustifiable.

Lucifer can clearly sense her upset. He squeezes her fingers, leans down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“It’s all right,” he says softly into her hair. “I told her you’re entirely capable of taking care of anyone who threatens you. And also that I would dismember anyone who even tried to point a gun at you.”

Chloe can’t help the laugh that bursts out of her. The guilt tightening a vice around her ribs loosens slightly. It’s not completely gone. The spectre of its fingers still clings to her bones, but it eases enough that she can push it to the back of her mind.

Instead, she pulls the still-strong recollection of complete security back from the recesses of her memory. Letting the sensation flow through her veins with honey-golden warmth, she leans forward and wraps her arms around both Lucifer and Trixie to pull the three of them in together. Lucifer settles his own arm across Chloe’s shoulders and tugs her gently, guiding them over to the sofa and down into a comfortable tangle on the cushions. Chloe frees one arm just long enough to snag the blanket from the sofa back and spread it over them, before hugging it back around Trixie. Trixie scrunches her nose in her sleep and Chloe smiles, finally relaxes completely.

For a moment there’s nothing but silence, then Lucifer leans his head against hers and softly starts humming, picking up the tune of his lullaby where he left off. The bass vibrates in his chest, echoing against Chloe’s ear, through her body right down to the soles of her feet. Closing her eyes, she breathes in the mingled scent of the three of them, cocooning herself in warmth and safety, and lets the melody carry her away into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pentatonix - Light in the hallway


End file.
